The 2016 Data Center 100

Pressures from major trends driving IT - think cloud, mobility, software-defined everything, and the need to control costs - are not only changing how businesses and their users use IT, but are also impacting how the IT world designs, builds, and runs data centers.

As the pace of IT change quickens, finding the right experts to help build and operate data centers is crucial. The Data Center 100 list is one place to start. By no means an exhaustive list of partners, it instead looks at representative companies who can be counted on for help with data center infrastructure, tools, virtualization capabilities, services, and design.

2016 marks the sixth year that CRN has compiled the Data Center 100. The idea behind the annual list is to shine a light on the key technology providers that are powering today's data center to give solution providers some guidance when selecting the technologies needed to round out an efficient infrastructure.

Here we present the 2016 Data Center 100 across five categories (the lists will be published throughout the week):

Infrastructure:The hardware and software on which the data center is built.

Tools:Software and hardware for monitoring and managing data centers.

Virtualization:Technologies for virtualizing parts of the data center to turn them into services.

Services Providers:The cloud, co-location, software, storage, compute, and other resources customers can use in lieu of purchasing their own assets.

Designers & Builders:Those responsible for ensuring that the right mix of IT, power, and cooling equipment is laid out.

2016 Data Center 100: 20 Designers And Builders
Part one of CRN's Data Center 100 looks at data center designers and builders that are essential to getting data center projects started and making sure they are ready for move-in as expected.

Fourteen of the 24 publicly held channel companies on our watch list saw the price of their stock increase in the first quarter of 2018 while 10 recorded stock price declines. Take a look at who were the winners and who were the losers.

Ingram Micro executive vice president and Americas group president Paul Bay says rather than focus on technology and its delivery, Ingram Micro today is all about the business outcome the channel needs to deliver.